Delhi High Court granted bail to a climate activist in the Greta Thunberg toolkit case and dismissed the criminal conspiracy charges filed by Delhi police due to a lack of evidence. The law on criminal conspiracy was enacted to control the nationalist movement in India before independence.
According to section 120 –A of IPC, the Criminal conspiracy is when two or more person agrees to do or cause to be done, an illegal act or an act which is not illegal but by illegal means, such an agreement is designated a criminal conspiracy.
It was believed that agreement or meeting of minds is the one of the main evidence to prove the conspiracy under this section & also it is one of the hardest one to prove because as we all known to the fact that offender by himself does not agree to a fact that he is involved with someone It is only matter of circumstances that one can prove that there is a meeting of minds or an agreement between those two, In short, we can say that criminal conspiracy is based on circumstantial evidence in most of the cases there is no direct evidence to prove the same.
Recently we saw that The Delhi Police arrested a Climate Activist in India related to the tool kit case. The police claimed that the climate activist was the editor of “toolkit Google doc” and a “key conspirator” in the toolkit formulation and distribution.
Delhi Police accused the activist under section 120B (Criminal Conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 124A of IPC (sedition). The police claimed the Activist and others were the local collaborators in the conspiracy for inciting disaffection and accelerating the violence.
But the Delhi high court rejected the Delhi Police accusations and granted her bail. The court mentioned that the police lacked evidence to prove her conspiracy charges. The Court further held that interaction with people of doubtful credentials is not an offence. Apart from that the court also held that the authorities can not consider inferences (prior assumptions) as evidence.
